


Snow on Cardassia

by MnemonicMadness



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Angst, Bamf Garak, Character Study, Hopeful Ending, Introspection, M/M, More angst, My First Work in This Fandom, Nuclear Winter, Pining, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Cardassia, bashir isn't actually in this but garak thinks about him and pines, brief mention of off-stage suicide, not ASiT compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 05:41:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16152767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MnemonicMadness/pseuds/MnemonicMadness
Summary: On a snow-clad Cardassia in the clutches of a nuclear winter, Elim Garak has made the decision to reclaim his place in the Obsidian Order.





	Snow on Cardassia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xLostLenore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xLostLenore/gifts).



> Because me writing this is entirely your fault. I intended to quietly ship from a distance indefinitely, but you just had to drag me into actually writing Garashir smh. (Thank you so much for the ideas and discussions and encouragement and test-reading. You're amazing ♥♥♥)
> 
>  
> 
> Anyway. This is my first attempt at writing in this fandom, and I hope it won't be completely terrible :D

A white shroud covers the rubble, crunches underneath his feet, threatening to make him slip and fall on an unseen piece of debris. White dances through the air, whipped this way and that by the merciless winds. Snow on Cardassia. An unusual sight indeed, one not seen for many, many centuries, and at no time could it have been less welcome than this.

Elim Garak pulls his thick coat tighter around himself with a wry smile, remembering the strange idea humans have that their deceased loved ones observe them from some mythical place above, and he wonders what Tain might have thought of him this very moment, were he watching. There is a certain irony in all this; of course the coat fits perfectly, made of the ideal materials – at least out of those that were available to him in this wasteland – and warding off enough of the cold that, although Garak does feel the lethargy pulling on his muscles and slowing his every motion, he knows he is in no imminent danger of finding a cold death. And out of all that Tain has taught him, it is his skill as a tailor – his punishment, his humiliation – that keeps him safe from the cold now, and it is the tolerance to colder temperatures he has built up during his exile that helps him function.

He finds he likes to imagine that Tain would be rather enraged, a thought that is strangely amusing now where only a few years ago it would have pained him. Still, he shrugs off the fanciful notion of being watched, yet more evidence of having spent too long a time among humanity. Either way, the idea of Tain as a loved one is a stretch at best.

The wind picks up, howling through the broken remnants of what may have once been housing structures, hurling snow into his unprotected eyes and Garak ducks behind broken pieces of wall to wait out the strongest gusts. The snowfall worsens, leaving him unable to see farther than a few metres, turning the world grey. With a sigh, he lets himself sink to the frozen ground, sitting with his back leaning against the precariously tilted wall and opens his improvised satchel.

It’s dark – it is always dark these days, even for Cardassian standards, the entire atmosphere polluted with a thick, dense layer of ash, the dark and cold of a nuclear winter inevitably following the Dominion’s bombardment, making day and night almost indistinguishable from each other – and so it takes him a moment to find the leftover pieces of Vole, roasted yesterday over the campfire he’d risked making. The meat is tough and not at all appealing to his palate, but he has eaten much worse on some assignments during his time in the Order.

Still, for a moment he finds himself missing Deep Space Nine, missing Quark’s overpriced food and the sub-par but much more affordable choices at the Replimat. Missing his lunches in Dr Bashir’s delightful company. And there, another irony of the badly written tragic comedy that is his life. For years he has longed for nothing more than to return here, home, to his beloved Cardassia, longed to leave the cold, blindingly bright space station. And now here he is, back to a home that’s lying in shambles, barely recognisable, wishing for a little more light and with the memory of DS9 seeming so warm all of a sudden.

The warmth of that association, he knows and has long begrudgingly acknowledges, isn’t entirely a physical one. Not for the first time, Garak wonders if it would have made a difference if, the day they’d finally defeated the Founders, he’d given into his impulse to ask Dr Bashir to stay.

He shakes his head at himself. When has he turned into such a foolish, hopeless romantic that the idea of trying to rebuild Cardassia with the young doctor at his side seems so appealing? When has he allowed sentiment to take such a firm hold of his heart that he regrets not speaking up so fiercely? There is little point in regret, at least not when it doesn’t teach anything of value. So he reminds himself that it would have been foolish for him to believe the good doctor would have agreed to leave his home, his friends, Ezri – he pretends that last thought doesn’t make bitter jealousy flare up in his heart – behind, even if Garak had asked him to stay. Resolutely ignores the fact that he would have known which words to choose to convince him to stay regardless.

The wind quiets and slows, the snowfall thins slightly, improving the range of vision, if only marginally. His legs seem reluctant to cooperate when Garak moves to stand and he knows, even thickly clothed as he is, he cannot stay out here, motionless for so long. It would be safer to travel down in the tunnels and sewer systems, as most have taken to doing these days, but therein lies the problem.

When the bombs fell, when the Cardassian military essentially ceased to exist, when the Cardassia’s environment turned against her people, the unthinkable happened. The bombs fell, and the state, the one constant in every Cardassian’s life, fell with them. And so, what took over was an instinct much more ancient and unbreakable than the doctrine of servitude to the state; the instinct of family. Those with families took to the tunnels and sewers, carving out territories, jealously guarded and with occupants not overly inclined towards hospitality. And Garak has no intention to fight his way through, when he may as well stick to the nearly deserted surface.

A part of him, one sounding suspiciously like Tain, whispers that this is where he belongs. Objectively, he doesn’t disagree entirely. Those who wander the surface are those who are alone, without family, and without the state lending structure and purpose to their lives they are lost. That is where the similarities end. His exile has acclimatised him to an existence without the state, and the Order has long ensured that what of his own familial instinct it couldn’t eliminate, is deeply buried in the deepest recesses of his mind – even if another thing he elects to ignore for the moment is how the idea of family, of profound emotional bonds, always brings up memories of the hazel eyes of one Julian Bashir, always so filled with intelligence and compassion, and intrigue whenever they met his own.

Garak’s strides lengthen, as sure as they can be on the uneven, snow-covered ground, carrying him towards his destination. Another gust of wind momentarily sweeps the falling snow aside, lets him take in more of the devastation before the curtain of grey and white dancing in the air hides it again. It has quickly become apparent that the aftermath of the bombardment will be much more costly than the event itself. He knows the rubble hides countless bodies, not only of those who died during the war, but also those who spent too long asleep in the cold and never woke up, those who became too lost without the ties of state or family to bind them. Only yesterday, he passed the body of a man, hanging from one of the taller fragments of a building.

But perhaps worse than the devastation around him is the knowledge that it is much worse than it needs to be. His beloved Cardassia may be wounded, but he knows she would let her people save her if only they’d try. As much as Bashir had always enjoyed arguing against the importance of the state, it has been the backbone of Cardassian society for so long it really is no wonder everything that’s still left these days is on the verge of falling apart without it. Splintered apart as the people are, only looking out for their families and themselves, rebuilding will be an impossible task. Violence will become even more commonplace the lower the already sparse supplies run and even if Cardassians weren’t too proud to accept it, Garak knows there won’t be any outside help.

Which leaves only the resources and raw materials currently on the planet, with which rebuilding, while still an exceedingly challenging task, will be possible under the efforts of a cohesive society. Which brings him to the crux of the matter; the reason for his journey and his choice of destination.

Finally, the ground underneath his feet becomes less uneven, the piles of rubble smaller, while the remains of the building in this part of the city rise up taller and taller – far from intact, but more so than in the places he has passed through. Silently, he slips away from the road and into the shadows before he can be spotted, since surely there must be someone watching these streets. The knowledge that the footprints he left in the snow will remain visible for several minutes irks him, but at least the darkness, the ash and snow in the air limiting visibility so severely, are now his ally rather than the constant threat of losing his sense of orientation they have been for the rest of his journey.

The wind begins to pick up again, starting to seep even through Garak’s thick coat and he knows still is the beginning of an outright storm, knows he will reach his destination not a moment to soon. And yet, he hesitates, letting the wind howl around him, letting his thoughts flare up into a storm of their own in his mind.

The higher ranking members of the Order are long dead, carrying too much power for the Founders to allow them to stay alive, but unlike the military command, that doesn’t mean it is down for the count. It’s leaderless, scrambling for purchase in a crumbling world, severely reduced in number, but its foundations still hold and it has the potential to be the perfect tool in Garak’s hands, to become exactly what Garak needs to repair his home. He is well aware that he is no longer the operative he once was. Too visible, downright infamous in certain cycles. Too many attachments that he isn’t sure he can sever anymore – loath as he is to admit it even to himself, they are too precious to him for now. With a stubborn hope hiding in the darkest corner of his heart, that one day he’ll see Bashir again, that someday, he might get to see what could become of the potential that had been simmering between them for over seven years.

He is as changed as Cardassia, compared to when he last set foot onto her soil before his exile and most damning of all, he is no longer sure if that change is something he ought to regret. Yes, Tain would be quite displeased with him, and that thought brings another wry smile to his face.

The cold, polluted air burns in his lungs as he takes a deep breath, lets his thoughts bleed away into a focused quiet as he breathes out. Takes a second one, and packs away all distractions, all sentiment, all hopes and dreams and foolish wishes that aren’t pertaining to the good of Cardassia, lets all that is held in his heart go hidden and quiet until almost only the operative remains. The wind howls and the snow crunches underneath his feet as he makes his way over to the building he knows to house the entrance to the current, unofficial headquarters of what remains of the Order and pretends the things hidden in his heart don’t make the organ feel strangely heavy.

Wounded as she is, to his eyes Cardassia is as beautiful as ever, and he has never known her to be anything other than a harsh mistress to him. And if she has no place for Elim Garak, the plain, simple tailor with his unexpected friendships and a foolish love for a human doctor, if instead she has need for the Son of Tain, then that is who he will be.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you liked it? Comments feed my writer soul, and I'd especially appreciate them here because, well. I had even less of an idea what the hell I was doing with this fic than usual. <3


End file.
